Information technology for learning, education and training

SC36 develops standards within the field of information technology (IT) for learning, education, and training (LET). A key goal of SC36 standards is to provide for interoperability among different and distributed IT systems, tools and services used in LET contexts.

SC36 was established at the November 1999 ISO/IEC JTC 1 plenary in Seoul, Republic of Korea. The subcommittee held its first plenary meeting in March 2000 in London, United Kingdom. By 2022, it had held 37 plenary meetings in 17 countries. Its first fully virtual meeting was successfully held at the 34th plenary in March 2020 and its first hybrid meeting (in Oslo) in September 2022.

During the worldwide pandemic of 2020-2021 ‘emergency remote teaching’ and learning from home were quickly established as the ‘new normal’ for the global education sector. This could not have been achieved without maturity of the digital infrastructure supporting learning, education, and training. It is also significant that this maturity has been facilitated by standardization work of committees such as SC36 and related organizations.

In recent decades the development of knowledge and skills in education, industry, and other fields is increasingly linked to efficient and effective use of information technology. In addition, the development of competency frameworks and associated information technology systems by educational institutions, companies, professional organizations, associations, government ministries, and others can be leveraged and shared to better support learning outcomes.

Benefits of adopting SC36 standards include:

– sustainability, through the development of modular digital infrastructure

– interoperability, the ability to share content and data across multiple platforms that spans both open and proprietary formats.

Learning, education, and training are pivotal activities in bringing social and economic benefits to societies all over the world. In 2022, the global educational services market was estimated to be over 3,000 billion USD with a compound annual growth rate of 10.7%. Such a market signals a wide range of stakeholders. Beneficiaries of SC36 standards therefore include educational institutions, companies, professional organizations, government ministries, and communities all over the world.